Addressing Past Conversion through Restoration and Conservation as a Requirement for Certification of Plantations that have converted natural forest areas Post 1994

Policy Motion (high-level action request):

The membership recognizes the strategic importance of addressing the issues around conversion of natural forest-related ecosystems to plantations and the need for alignment of the diverse ways in which conversion is treated in different parts of the FSC normative framework. The membership requests that FSC puts in place a mechanism, building upon previous work, which will develop a holistic policy and appropriate treatment at Principle, Criterion and Indicator levels with guidance to national Standards Development Groups, considering compensation for past conversion, in terms of:

a. restoration and/or conservation for environmental values; and

b. restitution for socio-economic values

This opens the door to the certification of companies that have bulldozed vast areas of forests since 1994. Companies such as Asia Pulp and Paper, for example.

One comment

This is FSC admitting forests are man made. FSC now regard a palm oil plantation as a ‘forest’. In some cases the forest doesn’t even contain trees to retain certification. (between rotations)
I call it ‘legoland forestry’.